Adding Dropbox and Google Drive to Microsoft Office 2013

After seeing so many poorly-made versions of Office, it’s quite a relief to see one that finally works the way it should. Office 2013 made it big as far as office suites are concerned. However, there’s one caveat: The whole cloud storage aspect of it can be a bit confusing. By default, Office gives you the option to store your data on SkyDrive. But what if you have an account on Dropbox that you use a lot? There’s also Google Drive, Box, and a number of other cloud providers that let you synchronize with applications. This article will explain how to add the third-party cloud storage services Dropbox and Google Drive to Office.

What Is Cloud Storage?

If you’re lost, let me explain cloud storage in a nutshell: Cloud storage lets you put your files on a central server where you can access them very easily through any device you own or operate. For example, you can add a PowerPoint presentation from your computer to your Dropbox account and then present it through a projector connected to your laptop which accesses the Dropbox account and opens the file directly. This is extremely advantageous in situations where you have to use a file interchangeably between devices. Google Drive actually comes with word processing capabilities as well!

What Advantages Do I Get Adding Cloud Storage To Office 2013?

When you add a third-party cloud storage service to Office 2013, you get to save documents directly to their servers. This way, you don’t have to upload them manually from your desktop. Just click “Save As” and then select your storage medium!

Adding A Cloud Storage Service To Office 2013

Since cloud services each have different ways of communicating with client computers, each is explained separately here.

Adding Dropbox

Download the batch file containing a script for adding Dropbox as a service in Windows 7/8.

Open the batch file (ignoring any warnings saying that it’s malicious) by right-clicking it, then clicking “Run As Administrator.” You should reach an interface like this:

Press any key, as the batch file suggests.

Type the location of your Dropbox folder on your hard drive. The default would be “C:\Users\*windows user name*\Dropbox.” Replace *windows user name* with the username you log in to Windows with.

The script will start working, provided you followed the instructions clearly.

Adding Google Drive

The process for adding Google Drive is mostly the same, except you have to download this batch file. Your default Google Drive directory will be the same path as the Dropbox one, except that “Dropbox” is “Google Drive,” of course! Remember to put quotation marks around the path you type if there are any spaces in it.

Once you’re done, it’s time to actually enable the services in Office 2013!

Setting Up The Cloud Storage Services

The following shows how to set up third-party cloud storage services to work with Office 2013:

Click “File.”

Click “Save As,” then “Add a place.”

You’ll already see Dropbox and/or Google Drive in there, provided you followed the instructions correctly. Just click on them to be done.

Want More Cloud Services?

If you want to learn how to add other third-party cloud storage services in Office 2013, just comment below and I’ll consider covering them in another piece! If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask as well.